Electronic devices, including portable electronic devices, have gained widespread use and may provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions, digital cameras and the like. Portable electronic devices include, for example, several types of mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart phones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), and laptop computers with wireless 802.11 or Bluetooth capabilities.
Portable electronic devices such as PDAs or smart telephones are generally intended for handheld use and ease of portability. Smaller devices are generally desirable for portability. With continued demand for decreased size of portable electronic devices, electronic devices continue to decrease in size. Decreasing the size of the electronic device typically requires relatively smaller electronic components such as, for example, smaller integrated circuits and/or microprocessors and/or surface mounting the electronic components to a printed circuit board to reduce a dimensional thickness or profile of the electronic device.
However, decreasing the dimensional size of the electronic components and/or surface mounting the electronic components may require more efficient and/or accelerated dissipation of the heat generated by the electronic components. Failing to efficiently dissipate heat from the electronic components may cause a temperature of a housing of the electronic device to increase to a temperature that may be discomforting to a user holding the electronic device. Additionally or alternatively, failing to efficiently dissipate heat generated by the electronic components may cause the operating temperatures of the electronic components to be greater than a maximum allowable operating temperature.